


Weakness

by spookyscaryskeletons (Buttons15)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 10:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19903954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/spookyscaryskeletons
Summary: "I wasn’t able to let you go,Lexa thought but didn’t say, and then something even more dangerous,You are close to my heart, and they weren’t. You are part of my people to me, and they weren’t, and I wish you’d see me as yours as much as I wish you were mine.All of those were wrong answers. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she looked away. “I was weak,” she replied instead, brief and to the point and carrying all the hidden meanings she wished she could express.To Clarke, that was answer enough."(a clexa dynamics study that presents a tweak to the mountain people betrayal scene so it actually makes sense and pushes their relationship forward in a logical way)





	Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen shows with bad writing before but _holy fuck_

If there was one thing Lexa had learned during her whole miserable existence, it was that life was made of choices, and that like it or not, some people’s choices weighted much more on the world than the average. She stared at the screen ahead of her, watching things unfold as if in slow motion.

She caught herself thinking, not for the first time, that none of that was fair. That she hadn’t asked for any of this. But she cut the thought down, buried it under the piles and piles of bodies that fell by her hand. She found justice to be a useless concept. Things were what they were, action and consequence, pushing and pulling, and that was the end of that.

The sounds of the battle roared behind her, a rush that she couldn’t help but enjoy, the pumping of her heart and the heat of bodies and the rust like smell of blood as they mowed down line after line of mountain men. She had been born for this, raised into this, all of the Triku had been, and it had never crossed her mind that what she did could be anything but right.

And then there was Clarke.

It was a mistake to think they were the same, even when their decisions led them down the same path, even when their results were essentially the same. Nothing brought the best out of Lexa like swords on her hands and crowds on her feet. She thrived on it. But Clarke didn’t.

The way of her people, despite being the closest to that of the men which torn the world to pieces, was filled with guilt and regrets and things that were illogical and dangerous as such. Filled with emotions she’d been taught to suppress for the greater good. Emotions she _chose_ to not acknowledge every single morning when the sun roused her from her sleep.

She’d called it weakness when she knew it was something else. There was a difference between being weak and being different. The people who took things without forethought, on impulse, the people who broke into a run through a minefield when they saw the exit, those were weak. The people who couldn’t recognize an opportunity when it stared them on the face, those were weak.

The mountain people had found their so-sought cure, and yet they chose to rush it, to kill for it, when a little bit longer of research or a little bit teaming up with Skyku could have led them to a mutually beneficial, non-lethal solution that would made them both thrive. And yet they spat on that chance when they got it, right when their salvation was before them in the shape of Clarke. Clarke was, at her core, a merciful person. She wasn’t naturally inclined to violence.

It was different. It wasn’t weakness, or so told her heart, the one she’d learned to silence and mistrust. It wasn’t weakness if Clarke could hold all that inside her and still make the right choices. That she could do what Lexa could not could only be strength. Clarke wasn’t heartless.

Lexa, on the other hand…

Five seconds. She had five seconds to make that call, to press a button that would save Clarke but rob her of those she was fighting for, or to not press that button and let the leader pay the price for the people. She had feelings clouding her thoughts, but she identified them and shut them down with terrifying efficiency.

Four seconds.

She was angry, infuriated that the Mountain Men would even think to offer her a deal – right when the doors had been breached and her biggest victory, the defeat of her worst enemies, laid right into the palm of her hand. The offense to her honor made rage bubble inside her. She silenced that.

 _Clarke would have had mercy,_ she mused, fingers tracing the shape of the button. _They should have asked her, but they were not smart enough_.

And stupidity was weakness, and this world had no space in it for the weak.

Three seconds.

Letting Clarke die was bound to break their truce, but that didn’t worry Lexa, not logically. Her army was massive, and though the Skyku had advanced weapons her people would never dare dabble on, they only had so many bullets. The numbers advantage was too great. Lexa could have them bleed whenever she felt it was convenient.

But that wasn’t quite right. That was a clouded thought. Lexa grit her teeth and told herself to start again.

Two seconds.

The answer was obvious. The lives of a significant amount of Skyku’s people was on her hands, and for a population that small, losing those lives would have massive impact. And their truce relied on a mutual enemy, so skimming their numbers was good, and the convenience of not having to remake a deal with a new leader was also good.

The answer was clear as a crystal. Save Clarke at the cost of her friends. Clarke had shown herself capable of reasonable thinking. She would hate Lexa for it, but she would not risk any more lives by fighting her. The answer was clear, but she still hesitated.

Hesitation was weakness.

One second.

She caught it then, the fugitive and sneaky feeling keeping her from an otherwise easy solution. She couldn’t quite name it, didn’t have the courage to, and cowardice was weakness. Letting the Skyku die was best for the grounders. That she even considered otherwise was because of a feeling. Because of the – _respect? –_ she felt for Clarke. Because she knew Clarke would choose giving her life there a thousand times over.

She was a good leader, and a good leader paid the price for their people.

 _That is so fucking unfair,_ she thought, and tried to silence it, tried to bury the nameless feeling together with the others, an emotion so contradicting that it told her to do what Clarke would have wanted even as it told her to be selfish and save her.

A treacherous emotion, that was. She tried to silence it. She couldn’t. And then she tried to face it like Clarke would have, and the attempt was so overwhelming they threatened to shatter her. She couldn’t deal with that. She couldn’t.

That was weakness.

Lexa shut down then, handed the reigns to her mind, reverted to the raw state of cold, calculated logic that was so natural to her. Logic had never failed her. Logic had gotten where she was. On power. At the top.

Weak.

The clock hit zero, and Lexa slammed her fist into the button, and then she heard the screams.

The sound tugged at her heartstrings like it hadn’t in almost a decade.

* * *

There were ruins. There was fire. They took more lives than they had to, but that didn’t bother Lexa. Her people hailed her as a hero, as the greatest commander that ever was, but that brought no joy. She couldn’t feel anything, as it had always been. She heard Clarke coming, but didn’t look.

A part of her – the part usually in control – told her to turn around, because she’d personally brewed rage into that heart, and the consequences of that could be a knife to the back just like the metaphorical knife she’d stabbed Clarke with. But that part of Lexa was exhausted, even though she’d won a war and victory fueled it more than anything. If Clarke wanted to end her, then so be it.

 _Is that weakness?_ She caught herself thinking. She didn’t know. Couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Why did you do it?” Clarke stopped at her side, turned to her. Lexa didn’t face her. “You _knew_ it’s not what I would have wanted. And you – everything you ever taught me went against that. You would have died for your people. Why didn’t you let me die for mine?”

And Lexa had a hundred, a thousand logical reasons for that, like she always had. Her reasoning was always straightforward and always sound, based on facts and truths and things as solid as the mountain they stood in.

But then she looked Clarke in the eyes, and for the first time in her life, logics failed her.

 _I wasn’t able to let you go,_ she thought but didn’t say, and then something even more dangerous, _You are close to my heart, and they weren’t. You are part of my people to me, and they weren’t, and I wish you’d see me as yours as much as I wish you were mine._

All of those were wrong answers. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she looked away. “I was weak,” she replied instead, brief and to the point and carrying all the hidden meanings she wished she could express.

To Clarke, that was answer enough.

* * *

Lexa didn’t expect to meet Clarke ever again, though a rational part of her knew it was only a matter of time. They were leaders, the two of them, leaders of two people that were bound to find themselves in conflict with one another, if only because their ways were so drastically distinct. But difference wasn’t weakness.

If anything, Lexa was coming to learn that accepting difference was the only way forward.

“I’m sorry,” she said once the two had the room for themselves. She’d thought about that moment many times, about what she could say to explain her actions, how she could maybe, just maybe, achieve some sort of forgiveness.

She’d tried to forget Clarke, too, to put a lid on the feeling in the hopes that the flame would run out of oxygen and wither away. But when it came down to it, there she was – she had no words, and her heart still ached.

If Clarke heard it, she didn’t show. “It seems like every time we meet it’s like this,” she took a seat on the bed, stared out of the windows of Polis. “There’s always a storm brewing. Or a storm already there.”

“Life is about the struggle,” Lexa replied, walking over to the table. “Or so I was taught, until you came along.”

There was a sharp inhale. Lexa grabbed one of the unlit candles on the desk and rolled it between her fingers.

“I haven’t forgiven you, you know,” she heard Clarke shift on the mattress. “I don’t think there’s any pretty words you can say to change that.”

Lexa ran her fingertips over the candlewick, fiddling, letting the rough texture act as white noise in the background of her thoughts. “I’m not one for pretty words, anyway.” She put the candle down and reached for flint to light it. “Your chipped… friends, they won’t stop until they have me dead and my spirit crushed.”

“We’ll find a way,” Clarke replied, and Lexa rubbed the pair of stones together, producing a spark. She’d always found the process of making fire to be a pleasurable one. “One that does not involve killing them.” A pause. “Or killing you.”

It was nothing but what Lexa expected her to say, and she knew that sometimes it was true and Clarke did find a way. But sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes, there was no path that would leave their hands clean. The candle burned, filling the room with a sweet scent that was vaguely cinnamon.

Lexa supposed she could have argued then, could have called Clarke out on the several instances where that mentality failed. But she didn’t. It was a strange emotion. “I hope you’re right.”

Hope. She was trying to have hope. Second only to love, that was the most foolish feeling of them all.

“Lexa.” The demand in her tone was clear, but Lexa didn’t turn, because she knew her eyes would betray her.

She danced her fingers over the flame. “I’m sorry,” she said again, firm and loud and clear.

“I heard you the first time.”

Lexa winced, but turned around. She looked at Clarke, really looked at her – at the curve of her neck and the curls at the tips of her hair, at the scars on her skin and the furrow on her brow and the shine in her eyes. “What do you want from me, Clarke?”

Plain and clear, direct questions were Lexa’s style. Unfortunately, objective answers weren’t Clarke’s. “I don’t – I don’t know myself.” Clarke scoffed. “I think maybe… maybe I just want some answers.”

“Answers,” she repeated, leaning against the table, tapping her fingers on the edge. “Do you know the questions to those answers?”

“No,” the response was immediate and followed by a somewhat apologetic smile.

Lexa sighed. “It wasn’t an easy decision, because I knew you’d hate me for it, and I –” she cut herself short, paused, started again. “You have something most people don’t. That I don’t and I don’t understand it. You stick to your values and your feelings even when it’s too painful to bear. I chose your life over a dozen because I think the world needs that. The world needs you, more than it needs them, definitely more than it needs me. I –” She looked away. “I admire you. You’re not afraid to feel. You remind people how to – how to care again.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the closest Lexa could achieve. It was Clarke’s turn to sigh. She laid down on the bed and crossed her arms over her chest, silent for a long while. Lexa gave her time to think. She entertained herself by watching the fire of her candles flicker.

“You do better with really straightforward questions, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She saw the corner of Clarke’s mouth curl ever so slightly. “Would you say you had no choice?”

Lexa tilted her head, frowning, because the nature of the question itself confused her. “There’s always a choice. I chose you.”

Silence again. Clarke took her time to process before moving on to the next question. “Do you regret it?”

It was Lexa’s turn to hesitate. “I’ve made my peace with that choice and its consequences.”

“Do you _regret_ it?”

Lexa grit her teeth. “Not usually. It was the best choice. It brought lasting peace for everyone involved. Your people needed their leader, and I strongly believe that the loss of you would have harmed them more on the long run. And… and it soothes me to know you’re alive.”

“But?”

Lexa exhaled, feeling like a cornered animal. “But.” She paced. Grabbed another unlit candle and fiddled with it. Walked from one corner of the room to the other. Tried to sort through the things that had been eating her inside for years in a span of minutes. “But, but.” She could feel the weight of Clarke’s piercing gaze on her. She wasn’t used to this – to being hunted rather than to hunt. She knew something inside her would snap at it, and it did, and the truth came rushing out of her lips before she could stop it. “But I miss you. That’s all.”

It wasn’t even close to _all_ , but it would have to do. Clarke sat up, tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Her expression hopped from cold and analytical to something soft that gave Lexa hope and back to cold again.

“Two more questions,” Clarke said, leaning forward, not giving Lexa time to reply. “Do you still think love is weakness?”

“No.”

She waited for the second question, but when it didn’t come, she realized her plain answer did not please Clarke. “What is it to you, then?”

“It’s… different.” She sped up her pacing a little. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly. “Unfamiliar. Scary. I’m still learning. But different isn’t weak. Sometimes different is the way forward. To better things. To… living beyond just surviving.”

Clarke moved, let her legs dangle off the bed so her feet touched the floor. She lifted one finger. “Last question.”

“You said two.”

“You’d answer a hundred, if I asked.” There was a certain smugness in her tone that made Lexa shiver in trepidation. It was scary to have people with power over her. Scarier still if those people were aware of what they held. And Clarke knew exactly what she was doing. “Do you love me?”

She froze in place, heart racing, the candle slipping from her fingers. The noise of it hitting the ground snapped her back to reality. “I –” her legs felt weak. She pulled in air, but it wasn’t enough. “I – I just –” she was suffocating, the walls of the room closing on her, the weight of past choices and losses and mistakes cutting through her and causing her physical pain.

“Straightforward question,” Clarke said, and Lexa saw she’d stood and closed the distance between them. “Straightforward answer. Yes or no?”

Their eyes met. Lexa felt her world turn upside down. Felt herself succumb. “Yes.”

Clarke held her face then, pulled her into a fierce kiss that made her heart crumble into a thousand pieces, dust to be swept over by the winds of the storm they were about to face. She knew, _knew_ , logic and sound, that this was bound to bring the two very little but pain. But right then she didn’t care.

She would give Clarke the world, if she asked, and part of Lexa hoped she would, because the world would have been easier to conquer than her own feelings were. “I love you,” she whispered, almost a whimper, and now Clarke’s fingers were undoing her buttons and pulling her towards the bed and it was harder and harder to find her words. “I’m sorry I caused you pain, but I don’t regret choosing for you to live.”

“And I’ll never forgive you for that,” Clarke hissed, lips on her neck, followed by a bite just hard enough to be painful. Lexa winced, letting out a sound of mixed pleasure and pain. Her legs hit the side of the bed and gave out under her, Clarke climbing on her lap. “But we’ll both have to live with that, because as it turns out, I fucking love you too.”

 _Oh,_ Lexa thought incoherently, heart hammering, and then Clarke pushed her down, and pinned Lexa under her weight, and Lexa couldn’t think at all.

**Author's Note:**

> "But buttons, I don't see what's wrong with betraying your hard earned ally for an ancient enemy who used a missile against you and has more misses to use, right when you broke this enemy's previously impenetrable defenses and are about to pit your army of essentially spartans against their civilians who can't breathe air. That sounds like a logic decision to me, from narrative, strategic and military points of views." 
> 
> _SCREAM_
> 
> "Ok buttons so what's going on here?"
> 
> i have a 39 degree fever and i am mildly delirious 
> 
> i have binged this show in one day, from beginning to end, and by end i mean the episode they kill the lesbian because from then on i have literally no reason to keep watching 
> 
> this fic explores the fight versus the mountain people, replacing lexa's utter nonsense betrayal for a more insidious yet logical one: what if instead of choosing between her people and clarke's, lexa had to choose between clarke's people and clarke herself?
> 
> this is a much more compelling question, because not only does it break the girls apart, it also pits them against their very principles: it forces clarke to see lexa's reasons for shutting down emotionally at the same time it forces lexa to stare her feelings in the face. 
> 
> "But buttons, how did that situation come to be? Were they trapped in a room? Was someone being held hostage? What did the button do and what's the mechanism of their deaths?"
> 
> i don't know. i don't care. i'm 39 degrees of fever in and I want to write bubbline fanfic and I can't do it unless I get this character study plot bunny out of my mind.
> 
> probably something to do with a secret acid fog tank or a conveniently placed bunker self destruct button we'd never heard about until the plot needed it. i don't care. my blood hurts. i need some tylenol. 
> 
> "Will you write more for this fandom?"
> 
> i'm a physician. i get infections fairly often. high fevers aren't that uncommon in my life. so i hope not but maybe. working with the 100 canon lore feels exactly as pleasant as the colony of bacteria currently partying in my throat
> 
> "What did you learn with this character study?"
> 
> That Adventure Time's Princess Bubblegum is colder than The 100's Lexa by a long run. Lexa's actually not that cold. She's ruthless, but kinda soft. 
> 
> i have no idea what to do with that information or what's the use of that comparison, but if someone out there is into both fandoms you can dwell on that statement or something


End file.
